Bajaj Auto launched the RE60 in the Capital. The ultra low cost car was first announced over four years ago as a project with Bajaj Auto and Renault-Nissan. It was then touted as the challenger to the TATA Nano but this is not what Mr Rajiv Bajaj MD had in mind.

Mr Bajaj told reporters at a press conference that “In 2007, we started work on a low-cost car with Renault-Nissan but dropped this concept two years later because it did not make sense to us. The better option was to go for a four wheeler.”

Thus was born the RE60, where Bajaj Auto’s goal was to take the story of the three wheeler into this new millennium as it did with the Chetak scooter which made way for the contemporary Pulsar motorcycle in the turn of the century.

Mr Bajaj said that “We are an ‘anti car company’ from a marketing position point of view. This vehicle was born out of the costs and skills of a two-wheeler market. There must be a starting point for a strategy which in our case was a brand.”

The RE60 weighs barely 400 kilograms and is fitted with a 200cc engine in its rear which delivers 20 hp. It has petrol and CNG/LPG fuel options. The company believes that one of its biggest strengths is its mileage tipped to be over 35 kilometres to a litre. Likewise, on the carbon dioxide emissions front, it is about 60gm/km.

Bajaj Auto has not announced the price of the RE60 though it is expected to be in the INR 0.18 million range. It will be produced in Aurangabad which is home to the existing three wheeler range. The first set of vehicles is expected to debut in the coming months.

(Sourced from BL)